This is a bit of a follow up piece to the Apprising Ministries article Emerging Church Feminist Pastrix Julie Clawson. For the benefit of our many new readers, as far back as November 2005 I’m on record as calling this egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church—morphing into Emergence Christianity (EC)—a cult within evangelical Christianity.

In fact in my opinion it is as Christian apologist Chris Rosebrough, founder of Pirate Christian Radio, has recently stated: This EC is Liberalism 2.0. It’s a newer form of what the late Dr. Walter Martin, author of the classic textbook Kingdom of the Cults, once called, “The Cult of Liberalism aka Modern Theology.” The EC is a postmodern theology i.e. a postliberalism.

At the spiritually corrupt heart of this EC is a new—and not so improved—version of the spiritually bankrupt social gospel ala Walter Rauschenbusch; so as such I am under no Biblical obligation to respect the teachings of the EC whatsoever, and I couldn’t care less who this upsets in the effete evangelical community. Sadly today we are virtually bereft of leaders with any spiritual backbone in the visible church.

That understood, we turn our attention to EC “pastor” Julie Clawson. In the introduction to the post Julie Clawson on the Kingdom of God we’re told that at the time this piece was written Julie Clawson was serving as:

a church planting pastor in the Chicago area. Julie is originally from Austin, Texas, and attended Wheaton College where she met her husband Mike. (Online source)

Let me also point out that pastrix Clawson’s post referenced above is from the popular Pomomusings site of Adam Walker Cleaveland. For those who don’t know, Cleaveland was the contributor to An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, edited by a most dubious duo of the EC—heretical quasi-universalist pastor Doug Pagitt along with his equally heretical “theologian in residence” Tony Jones—who informed us that Jesus Was Wrong.

I’ve told you many times before that this EC is a series of interlocking concentric circles of false teachers. Here’s another example, Julie Clawson: My Search for the Justice Bra, Part 2, which ran at the the prominent website of Jim Wallis God’s Politics. Wallis happens to be one of those Red Letter Christians along with such notable names around this Emergence Christianity like Brian McLaren, his friend Tony Campolo, and Living Spiritual Teacher “father” Richard Rohr.

From the God’s Politics piece above we also learn that, “Julie Clawson [was] a church planting pastor in the Chicago area and the coordinator of the Emerging Women blog.” And finally in the AM post Queermergent Adele Sakler And Emergent Village I previously pointed out that “pastor” Julie was co-founder and co-pastor, along with her husband Mike Clawson, of the Emerging Via Christus Community Church. 

You may also recall that Mike Clawson was among those who helped organize the Midwest Emergent Gathering a year or so ago, and which featured Jones and Pagitt. Now as you can see e.g. in Christianity 21: Emerging Voices Of A Pseudo-Christian Faith Tony Jones, who tells us he’s “a leader in the emergent church movement and a renowned expert on postmodern theology and the American church landscape,” makes sure we know of this C 21 EC conference October 9-11.

He tells us c 21 features 21 women, “these Voices,” who’ll be revealing “the way the Christianity will be changing in coming days”, and who are also going to “be in a pulpit somewhere in the Twin Cities that Sunday morning.” Although the following men will not be speaking at C21, Jones points out that e.g. his Emergent Church pastor Pagitt, Shane Claiborne, Peter Rollins “and others” will be “sitting behind the registration table, handing out nametags.”

AM has also told you that among these alleged “innovative” and “most important voices for the future of Christianity” who’ll “speak into our future” in order to “shape the future of our faith” at this upcoming C 21 will be “queer inclusive” ELCA “pastor” Nadia Bolz-Weber, gay affirming PCUSA “pastor” Nanette Sawyer, Phyllis Tickle, the Empress of Emergence Christianity, and even “pastor” Julie Clawson herself.

One needs to keep this in mind as we now look quickly at Moltmann Reflections 2, the second in her series where this “Voice” who, according to EC royalty Jones and Pagitt will “shape the future of our [Christian] faith,” will:

be blogging my thoughts about the Moltmann conversation. I’m not a theologian, and I’ve read very little of Jurgen Moltmann (although now I want to read a lot more), so I will just be reflecting on what I heard at the Emergent Theological Conversation. (Online source)

In the second part of the three posts pastrix Clawson has done thus far in her homage for Moltmann she shares:

One of the things I appreciated most in the conversations with Moltmann, was his insistence on returning to the simplicity of the gospel. Often he was asked a question on some controversial issue in the American church, and he simply scoffed at how we make such a big deal over it. His thought is that God is God and the gospel is the gospel – how we keep trying to manipulate and add things to it seemed preposterous or even heretical. (Online source)

Um, with all due respect to this second-tier German theologian I would suggest to Dr. Moltmann that it’s actually the postliberal cult of the EC, with whom he was speaking, who has been working for years now to obscure “the simplicity of” the Gospel: Christ Jesus died on the Cross for our sins according to the Scripures, He was then buried, and then Jesus was raised three days later; again; all according to God’s Word (see—1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

And now, considering that “pastor” Julie Clawson is gay affirming, we’re not surprised when she says:

Take for example his response to two such hot topic issues much discussed lately in America – gender language for God and homosexuality. Moltmann was asked about the difficulty in “coming up with pronouns that are appropriately intimate and personal for God and yet don’t anthropomorphize God with a gender.” His response was that God is neither he nor she nor it – God is God. (Online source)

Huh? One needs a doctorate to know “God is God?” Well, I’ve been very straightforward that my formal education is simply as a high school graduate; however, even I can recognize that Jesus—the Son (male gender) of God—taught us that those of us who have been born again in Christ should pray: Our Father (male gender) in Heaven. And so, those of us Christians who take the text of the Bible seriously address God as such; it has nothing whatsoever to do with oppression of women.

Then C 21 “Voice” Julie Clawson opines:

Same thing with homosexuality. When the schismatic nature of sexuality in the American church was brought up, Moltmann replied that the whole discussion isn’t a problem in Germany. He said they have never had a struggle about this in the churches and in between the churches, because the church is about the gospel and not about sex. Christians believe in the justification of human beings by faith alone, not by faith and homosexuality. That, according to Moltmann, is adding heresy. (Online source)

Heresy? Why, how very un-emerging/postmodern of Jurgen Moltmann to say that. But the key question we need to ask is: Upon what basis does Moltmann suddenly decide that it’s “adding heresy” to love GLBTQ people enough to tell them the Truth that having same-sex sexual relations i.e. homosexuality is the sin of sexual immorality according to the inerrant and infallible Word of our Creator God—the Bible? Answer: His highly subjective personal feelings.

Clawson then goes on to beat up a strawman concerning the “tendency, especially in the American church, to add things to the gospel,” which she finds “to be disturbing.” So who’s arguing that this is a good thing? Clawson also cites her being told, apparently recently, that she’s “not a true Christian” because she happens to do some silly things as:

representative of a growing trend in the church these days. When prominent church leaders regularly question the salvation of those who don’t follow the teachings of Calvin, the warped idolatry in the church is apparent. (Online source)

O please; EC pastrix Clawson. By the way, you have phone call; Mr. Kettle’s on line 2. Clawson then shares more from Moltmann, her new fav ear-tickler:

So, I loved that Moltmann simply scoffed at America’s adolescent stupidity and encouraged us to get back to the gospel. Let God be God. Let the gospel be the gospel. (Online source)

Yes, but of course, it’s America’s fault; evil Western thought, blah, blah, blah. Well, I’m not all that patriotic but, like cult expert Dr. Martin, I’ve not exactly been impressed with the contribution of German theology:

British theology was corrupted by German theology; by Friedrich Schleiermacher, Albrecht Ritschl, David Strauss. Finally [it moved] to the United States in Walter Rauschenbusch; and from there to Harry Emerson Fosdick, Nels Ferre, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Rudolph Bultmann—and the school that’s emerging from them today. (The Cult of Liberal Theology, CD Rom, available at Walter Martin Religious InfoNet)

Moltmann, Clawson, and other influential heretics within the postliberal cult of the Emerging Church are welcome to their dreams, but it’s precisely in letting “the gospel be the gospel” where they wandered away from the historic orthodox Christian faith. The Gospel is The Really Good News of individual repentance for the forgiveness of sins (see—Luke 24:46-47) and not some at-one-ment of religions in a world which will supposedly get progressively better through this EC neo-Marxism of “stick it to the Caesar-man.”

See also:

TONY JONES: GREAT OPTIONS FOR CHRISTIANITY 21

THE NEW CHRISTIANS WITH CHRISTIANITY WORTH BELIEVING—NO SOLA SCRIPTURA: YES, WOMEN PASTORS AND QUEER CHRISTIANS

CHRISTIANITY 21 AND ALLEGED INNOVATIVE VOICES IN THE FAITH: NADIA BOLZ-WEBER

CHRISTIANITY 21 AND ALLEGED INNOVATIVE VOICES IN THE FAITH: PHYLLIS TICKLE

EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY—A POSTLIBERAL CULT SLITHERS INTO EVANGELICALISM

APPRISING MINISTRIES WITH A PEEK AT THE COMING SOTERIOLOGY OF EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY

THE NIGHTMARE BEGINNING FOR MAINSTREAM EVANGELICALISM